1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink-jet recording process and an image-recorded article, and a liquid composition and an ink-jet recording apparatus used in the formation thereof.
2. Related Background Art
An ink-jet recording system is a system that minute droplets of an ink are ejected by any of various kinds of operation principles to apply them to a recording medium such as paper, thereby recording images, characters, etc., and has been rapidly spread in various application fields including information instruments as recording apparatus of various images in recent years because of possible high-speed recording, slight noise, easy color recording, high flexibility of recording patterns, needlessness of development and fixing, and the like. In addition, an image formed by a multi-color ink-jet system is about to be widely applied to a field of recording full-color images because recording comparable with multi-color printing of a plate system and prints by a color photography system can be provided, and such an image is cheaper than those by the ordinary multi-color printing and color photography system when the number of copies is small.
On the other hand, recoding media having a coating layer using an alumina hydrate of a boehmite structure have been proposed. A typical example thereof is described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H7-232475.
These recording media using the alumina hydrate have such merits that fixing of a dye in an ink is good to provide an image having good coloring, and such recording medium are preferred to the conventional recording media from the viewpoints of image quality of a resulting image, particularly, image quality of a full-color image, and gloss because the alumina hydrate has a positive charge.
Under the circumstances, however, an image obtained by using such dye ink and recording medium using the alumina hydrate described above may not have satisfactory performance as to resistance (gas resistance) to deterioration by a substance such as ozone gas in air in particular from the viewpoint of retaining the image quality of a high-quality image formed for a long period of time though it has image quality comparable with or superior to a silver salt print.
As a technique intended to improve the image durability of a resulting recorded article, it is disclosed to provide a protective layer on the surface of a recording medium after the formation of an image. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-158092 discloses a process for laminating various kinds of plastic films as a protective film on an image-recorded article.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H10-315448 describes a process in which fine particles composed of a thermoplastic polymer are contained in an ink-receiving layer of a recording medium in advance, printing is performed in such a state that the ink absorbency is kept, and the fine particles are then melted or dissolved by heat or a solvent to form a resin film as a protective film on the surface of the recording medium.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-225695, as an example where the same system as an image forming method is used as a means for forming a coating layer, discloses a method for forming a coating layer by ejecting an auxiliary liquid containing a resin having a film-forming function, such as an emulsion, by an ink-jet system. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-254796 describes that overcoating or undercoating is applied with a treatment solution containing an imidated styrene-maleic anhydride polymer by an ink-jet system.